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creating Christmas * day 9

The Nutroast

I like to make our Christmas dinner early as being vegetarian we don’t eat turkey. This year once again DH made our nutroast. It is a more elaborate nutroast that we have for Christmas, a recipe that my daughter found years ago from the pages of good old Woman’s Weekly.

Not only does it have to freeze well but it has to be transportable if we are dining elsewhere on Christmas day and this year we will be at my sister’s, I think, though we haven’t actually had a direct invite from her, but my daughter tells me she is expecting us. Let’s hope that is right and we are not a surprise when we turn up.

Each year I say to DH don’t cook the nutroast too long as we will have to reheat it, but I fear it might just be a touch too cooked, never mind it will still taste good and even better as he made it.

Today, we went supermarket grocery shopping. It is getting noticeably busier on each visit now and the carpark much fuller and there is a bit of a scramble to secure a place, not quite carpark rage but a lot of honking of horns and near misses.

We didn’t need to buy much of anything for the week’s menu plan, mainly all the fresh chiller foods and vegetables, so I made use of all the Nectar offers and stocked up a bit on anything reduced like the coffee and butter; these are such expensive items now.

I also had to pop into town to get a birthday card for my younger daughter for the weekend and look for a small gift to go with the money we will give her. I had a quick look in TK Max for something for her and saw a ‘possible’ that I might go back for later in the week. I had a quick look at their Christmas bits and pieces as they get some quite unusual things.

DH likes having a mooch around there too. He doesn’t generally like shopping but insists on going. I wanted to get some nougat for him for his stocking but today he stuck to me like glue and I could not shake him off long enough to go and buy some without him noticing.

It isn’t often he sees something he likes, but he showed me a set of four rather lovely little ridged flutes in quite a solid glass – quite inexpensive and they would be ideal for a kind of knickerbocker glory style dessert. I wasn’t going to say no to them as I like them too and I am already thinking of what I might serve in them.

I found some rather fun decorations for the tree too, brightly coloured iced biscuits (or are they cookies I am not sure of the difference). Not that we really need any more decor. I might split them between myself and my daughters.

I do like tissue paper to wrap presents in and TK Max and Homesense have had some lovely printed ones and this stocking design is great for the grandchildren’s presents.

And the calendar is so much fun – I will definitely be making one next year and might even see if they will appeal on the coffee morning craft stall.

Tomorrow is our visit to Mrs Gaskell’s house…can’t wait.

Back soon X

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creating Christmas * day 8

Remembering

There are always a few moments during Christmas when we pause to remember someone that we have lost. As you know recently, one of my special friends passed away and today is the 10th anniversary of another special friend who died after a long battle with cancer. She was a colleague at work and we sat together side by side for over 13 years (being affectionately called Hinge and Bracket by our colleagues!).

Working together each day we knew each other and our families so well. If I was having a bad day she would disappear into the kitchen and make me a hot chocolate as she knew that was my comfort drink. We supported each other in many ways and subsequently through our respective cancers and treatments, but unfortunately, Helen’s cancer returned and became terminal and she passed away in 2015.

Since then, the eighth of December has been referred to as Helen’s flowers day here and I take a small posie of flowers round to her mum together with a Christmas card and a little message of remembrance as a small guesture that Helen will not be forgotten.

She was, for me, the best colleague anyone could have wished for and we would laugh and joke through every day together, often till tears ran down our cheeks.

I hope everyone is getting ahead with whatever Christmas plans you have, some are elaborate some more simple but everyone in blogland seems to be enjoying the season so far.

My Advent calendar is looking quite pretty now as I open a few windows and reveal the little colourful picture behind each one. I will take a picture tomorrow. Surprisingly, I cannot remember myself what is behind each window even though I made it myself.

I looked after the boys yesterday for a while, Master Freddie and baby Chocolate, and I had a request to come and make gingerbread men with granny. How sweet is that! As it happens the girls Little L and Sweetie will be down to stay over the weekend, I had planned to make some Christmas mice with them but maybe they would like to make gingerbread men or a house too along with the boys.

Back tomorrow X

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creating Christmas * day 7

The Christmas Card

Christmas greetings sent in a card to friends and family, what better way to keep in touch and express your best wishes for the season and New Year ahead.

Wickipedia tells me that the first known Christmas card was sent by Michael Maier to James 1 of England and his son Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales in 1611. Like mine it was handmade.

As with many of our Christmas traditions they have continued from early beginnings and changed and blended over time to the customs we know now. The “Official” Christmas card began with Queen Victoria in the 1840’s and it is sad that for economic reasons this long tradition is in danger of dying out, like the postcard, as many people send far fewer cards now or none at all.  The price of postage has increased so much to an eye watering 87p each for a second class stamp or £10.44 for a book of twelve. I usually have to buy 2 books to cover the ones I have to post.

The Christmas stamps themselves are always well awaited and this years are particularly lovely. I have a feeling they have to be purchased from the post office now as only ordinary books of stamps are available from the supermarkets.

I have decided this year to cut down my list next year.  For the friends or acquaintances I never see from year to year I will include my email address in this year’s card with a message to say I would welcome an email at Christmas time and if they let me have their email address I will send them greetings in future via email, but this will be the last year I will send them a card.

I often make my own cards, so there is a lot more effort put into them than just choosing a packet from the card shop.  My craft room has resembled Santa’s workshop in the last few days as preparation of the card from idea to finished article takes time and the assembly of the cards is best done on a conveyor belt system.

In November we attended a Lino cutting workshop for which I had prepared a sketch in my sketchbook.  I decided on snowdrops and kept it simple.

I transferred the design onto the lino which was 13cm x 13cm a nice size for working on and took the first print.

The finished card blank size is only 4″ X4″ (10 x 10cm) so I couldn’t use the lino cut itself to print more cards instead I had to colour a print then reduce it on the computer to the required size. I was going to hand colour all of them individually once printed but as I need 30 cards that was a tall order. So I coloured one and then copied it many times on a sheet of cartridge paper.

I did a tiny version to stick onto the back of the card. Before I stick the print to the card I always stamp the Happy Christmas message inside the card first just in case the rubber stamp doesn’t come out well on some of them. I also like to stamp a little Christmas picture on the back of the envelopes.

Eventually everything was drying and I could finally cut the prints out from the sheets and add the double sided tape to attach them to the blank cards.

And voila!…..my Christmas card 2025.

I have still a few more to assemble but they will wait until tomorrow. My newsletter is all ready and I have the stamps so by tomorrow evening I should have them all done and maybe in the post. For the remainder of my Christmas card list there will be some people who will only get a bought card or if I have any homemade ones from previous years I will use these up.

I must say I do look forward to receiving a homemade card, I still have a few friends that like to make their own. I wonder how many readers make their own?

Back soon X

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creating Christmas * day 6

The Santa Visit

I am writing this post late today as we have only just arrived home after our little festive jaunt over the hill here to Ashton Under Lyne to see Santa.  A visit to Santa is probably not high on the list (if at all) for a lot of my readers but I have no problem joining in with the excitement of the grandchildren waiting in the queue in anticipation of handing over a Christmas list and receiving a small gift.

For the two seven year olds this was magical.  Master Freddie had a very l o n g list to hand to Santa with every item beginning with Paw Patrol and then when that was exhausted Number Blocks. He had also written one for his little brother, baby Chocolate…though I suspect this was more another list of toys that he wanted rather than his brother. In fact, I doubt his little brother got a say in what he wanted!

I hadn’t realised what a long history Father Christmas has had and the changes he has undergone since his first  appearance around the 17th century.  It is from America that we have the Santa Claus we acknowledge more today as the one who comes in the night and brings gifts for children. 

It is not the first time either throughout history that there has been a move by some group or other to abolish Christmas or replace its traditional customs with something less religious. For 15 years from around 1644 the celebration of Christmas in England was forbidden.

Might it be again?  I see in the news that some schools are renaming their, now traditional, Christmas jumper days as ‘Winter jumper’ days and Tesco’s Christmas trees are being sold as ‘Evergreen trees’ all this lest they offend anyone.  It seems history just keeps on repeating itself in different forms.

I have no problem with having a Christmas jumper, Christmas tree, Christmas cracker or Christmas cake and I love to hear proper Carols being sung in the shops rather than the American non-religious songs.

So for our visit to Father Christmas we chose to go to Portland Basin in Ashton Under Lyne, an old mill building that sits alongside the Peak Forest Canal (as seen on the Canal Boat Diaries with Robbie) houses a museum and cafe.

This will be the second year as we all loved it so much last year.  It is quite low key compared with many and a lot of Christmas nostalgia. The museum has an indoor mock-up of an old street complete with chip shop and chapel.  Santa waits patiently in the tiny living room of a replica of a terraced house decorated to resemble the war years. 

It is reminiscent of my grandma’s house, complete with outside toilet and for all it is shabby, compared with today’s style of décor, it has a nostalgic warmth and cosiness.  We could all squeeze in for a lovely little chat with Santa and a photo all together at the end.

The museum is full of nostalgia, many of the items I can recall from childhood like the signs for the Christmas club and good old-fashioned paper chains.

One or two board games like Snakes and Ladders are making a comeback, and of course, Monopoly comes in so many different variations now. My family always had a game on Christmas Day night as there was no TV back then. Uncle Peter generally won, but maybe not fair and square!

Remember these patterns for baraclavas – my mum had this one I’m sure.

Not only was it our Santa visit but it was a day of crafting and of course the adults in our little party, me included, could not help joining in. 

Before we went to the museum we started our day at the Saturday craft workshop at the Vale in Mossley. 

This week they were making gingerbread wreaths using gingerbread coloured card and white felt tip pens, with a lot of glue and imagination. 

After our picnic we had chance to make some elf hats and hunt for the elf stockings around the museum.

And best of all (apart from the cost of booking to see Santa) it was all free; though we did leave a donation at each place. So well done to Tameside MBC for a fun filled festive day, and I, for one, will be putting my feet up now and watching TV.

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